The streets outside the major’s office writhed with people. Mercy waited while Elias hailed a carriage, unsure if she should stop up her ears or plug her nose, so noisome and smelly was the crush of the crowds. What she wouldn’t give for a pair of buckskin breeches and a stretch of land to run clear of this fray…but only if Elias were running next to her.

Her gaze lingered on the long lines of his body as he turned and backtracked to her.

“Ready to go?” He held out his hand.

She wrapped her fingers around his, cursing the silly, useless gloves for blocking the feel of his skin against hers. He led her to the coach and steadied her as she ascended. By the time he joined her inside, she longed to be back out on the street. The carriage reeked of fish and sweat and something so cloyingly sweet that the tea she’d taken for breakfast gurgled in her stomach.

Elias settled on the hard leather seat opposite her and rapped his knuckles against the wall. The carriage lurched into motion.

So did her thoughts. The meeting with the major had raised more questions than had been answered. She angled her head, searching Elias’s face. “Who are you, Elias Dubois?”

A half smile lifted his lips. “By now you know all my secrets.”

“Save one.” She leaned forward. “The major mentioned your grandfather…a general? Though I suppose ’tis apparent in the way you take charge of things, why did you not tell me?”

His smile twisted into a smirk. “If you recall, you did not inform me your father was a sachem.”

She huffed, but of course he was right. Only strutting roosters crowed about their families. She’d come to learn Elias Dubois was many things—obstinate, compassionate, too handsome for his own good—but more than anything, humbleness resided inside that big chest of his. Still, with so powerful a grandfather, how had he managed not to become a man accustomed to privilege and power?

“Your family”—the carriage juddered over a bump, and she grabbed the seat to keep from tumbling—“tell me of them.”

“That is quite a tangled story.” Shifting, he left his seat and resettled next to her, shoring her up between his body and the wall. “Is that better?”

Much better to keep her from jostling about—but certainly not any safer, judging by the crazed beat of her heart from his nearness. Did he know the effect he had on her?

Ah…perhaps he did and was trying to throw her off the trail she’d scented. She speared him with a piercing gaze. “Your family story cannot be more snarled than mine, what with a mother captured by Wyandots and later rescued by a Mohawk leader.”

For a moment he met her gaze, then turned his face to look out the window.

She frowned. Apparently she’d pushed him too far. Folding her hands in her lap, she worried a loose thread on the hem of her glove with the pad of her finger—until Elias’s low voice murmured against the grind of the wheels.

Instantly, she straightened and leaned toward him, listening hard, for he yet kept his face turned toward the glass.

“I grew up in my grandfather’s home. By faith, but he was a strict English patriarch. My mother and I bore the brunt of his wrath for our rebellious ways—her by marrying a rogue voyageur on leave without Grandfather’s blessing, I by running wild on the streets…the very ones we now travel.”

He fell silent, giving her time to wonder on all he’d said. She dared a glimpse out her own window, trying to imagine such a young rebel darting in and out among the crowds. That was easy enough. But Elias had been nothing but kind the whole time she’d known him—unlike anything he said about his grandfather.

She turned back to him. “You are much like your mother, I think. I should like to meet her someday.”

He shook his head. “She died when I was ten.”

Unbidden, she reached for his hand, and when they touched, he jerked his face back to hers, a question arching one of his dark brows.

She merely smiled.

The carriage listed to one side as they veered around a corner, and she couldn’t help but slide up against him. She started to scoot away, but as he looked at the way her hand entwined with his, he whispered, “Stay.”

They rode in silence for a stretch, until he finally lifted his face back to hers. “I suppose it must have been hard on Grandfather, losing his daughter and trying to rein in a hellion like me. He sent me packing to my father when I turned thirteen, where I served as a voyageur myself for ten years.” A tempest broke in the blue of his eyes, dark and raging—then as suddenly cleared. “He was right to do so, for I learned what kind of man I would become if I continued with my wayward conduct.” He shrugged. “The rest you know.”

She smiled. “You came back here and became a spy…where you still roamed the wilds, looking for trouble. Doesn’t seem very different to me.”

“No.” He grinned back. “I suppose it was not.”

“Which is why it suited you so well.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “Do you think it will suit me?”

All the playfulness drained from his face, and she shuddered at the stranger staring out at her through Elias’s eyes.

“Mercy, I…” His words ground to a halt—as did the carriage wheels. Before the coachman opened the door, Elias lurched sideways and flung it open.

Blast! She’d done it again. Pushed him further than she ought have. Foxes and wolves, deer and elk, these animals she knew how and when to approach. But Elias? How could she possibly share all that was in her heart without scaring him away?

She grabbed his hand and stepped out of the coach. With so many petticoats and the weight of her gown, she stumbled as her foot hit the ground, and he tightened his grip, righting her. Thankfully the street in front of the inn was far less crowded with people to witness her inelegant descent.

Dropping her hand, Elias turned to her, a faraway look in his eyes, as if he’d already packed up his gear and moved on.

She froze, terrified. “Elias?”

“I guess this is goodbye.” His voice was a husk, an empty shell of what it had been.

Panic welled, and she couldn’t contain it even if she tried. “Is it?”

“My service is done…but yours? Mercy, if you go back to the major’s office, I have no doubt he shall make you an offer you cannot refuse.”

“But I’m not interested in what the major might offer.”

His brows shot high. “You are going to turn him down?”

Heedless of what the few pedestrians darting back and forth might think, she stepped close to him, as if by sheer nearness alone she could make him know the desire in her soul. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what you have to offer.”

A slow smile split across his face. Life and light and brilliance once again gleamed in his eyes. “I am land rich but cash poor, and the truth is I have nothing to offer you save for hard work and”—he dropped to one knee and gathered her hand—“my heart, if you will have it. Will you, Mercy? Will you give up a life of running free and settle down with the likes of me?”

Behind her, a few whispers swirled like autumn leaves skittering in a whirl, but she did not care. Not one bit. She dropped to her knees as well, right there in front of God and country. “I might, as long as it doesn’t involve me giving up my buckskin breeches. But do you suppose ’tis legal for me to marry my husband?”

His shoulders shook with a low chuckle. “You know what I love about you, Mercy Lytton?”

She shook her head.

“Everything.” Lifting her hand, he kissed her knuckles.

Blast those gloves! Even so, she couldn’t help but grin. “Tsi Nen:we Enkonnoronhkhwake, Elias.”

He cupped her cheek with his fingers. “I have no idea what that means, but promise me you shall say it every day for the rest of my life.”

“I promise, my love.” She beamed. “I promise.”